12 November 2013

Jointing Juxtaposition…le deux.

When you don't have a scoobies what you're doing, which like me, is most of the time, it's a pretty sound idea to tread cautiously as it's quite plausible to end up at the far end of the creek, submerged in the 'sticky stuff' up to one's hat band without the proverbial means of propulsion to extricate oneself.

In the Queen's English…you're in the crap!

…and if you dip into this drivel fairly frequently, you'll have realised that it's a place which is not unfamiliar.

In this particular instance, I didn't have a clue how to make the joint between the legs (the upright bit, 50x26mm) and the horizontal bit, bearing in mind that there will be sixteen of these things to do (eight each side).

Having a delvation into the scrap box, I happened upon a bit of oak (from the Bow Fronted Cabinet) and an oddment of brown ash. What you see in the pic above is a sort of a bastardised halving joint ...

…which works quite well, but the cunning part is that there's an 8mm dowel inserted down the centre which makes the whole thing quite rigid. I've used a 6mm roundover bit in the router, but the actual legs will have a slightly greater one, perhaps 9 or possibly 12 mm.

The trifling little difficulty, as both parts are 'bare faced' is that the joints will need to be made really tight, then planed, sanded and finished prior to gluing.

That's a long way off though…plenty more 'sticky stuff' to fall into in the meantime.

2 comments:

Here's a simple and strong joint that I first saw in this shelving unit from DESIGN WITHIN REACH. It is very stable and can support a lot of weight. The 'tenon' of the upright is cut narrower (as is the slot on the shelf) so the horizontal shelf rests on the shoulders of the upright.Look at the detail photo on the website page.